Nicholas Barry

Everything is all my fault. At least, that's my attitude when it comes to management. If my subordinates aren't performing well, it's probably because I'm not managing them well enough.

How would you feel if every time you completed an assignment for your boss, your boss tore up your work after you finished it? Even if you got paid well, it's hard to imagine that you'd want to keep working at that job.

Well, it turns out that if you don't get recognition for your work, that's almost as demotivating, according to an experiment carried out by Dan Ariely. Experiment subjects are asked to complete a relatively meaningless task. They earn money each time they do the task, and the amount awarded decreases each time they do the task. The question is, when will they get tired of repeating the task?

With one group of subjects, the experimenter asks subjects to write their name on the top of each of their papers, and gives an approving nod upon completing each task.

With another group of subjects, the experimenter puts each assignment on a tall stack of papers without looking at the assignment.

With the final group of subjects, the experimenter takes each assignment as it's completed and shreds it in front of the subjects' eyes.

It turns out that the second group (the "ignored" group) barely completes more work than the third ("shredded") group. So as a boss, ignoring your subordinates' work is almost as bad as actively destroying it, at least in terms of motivation and productivity!

I'm in the middle of introducing a series of new ways to give interns more recognition for their good work. And what fun would a bunch of carrots be without a little bit of the stick? How should I put it? There will be some mild disincentives to unproductivity. There, that sounds suitably benign.

(I'll document all my carrots and sticks on my Work page, along with commentary on how they've worked out so far.)

Carrots and Sticks

I'm recognizing interns' work by doing the following:

When they write response letters to constituents, sometimes the constituents reply appreciatively. I'm beginning to forward those responses to the interns who wrote the letter.

I'm asking interns to prepare reports for our weekly staff meeting, even if the interns' schedules don't match with the meeting, so they'll know their work is being reported to my boss, and to my boss' boss.

I'm preparing a whiteboard with every intern's name, and some major accomplishment from the past week. This is also a mild stick - interns won't want their name to have a big blank space next to it.

I'll make a public list of interns interns who consistently do their work in a timely manner, and will keep a separate list for interns who have fallen behind significantly.

We'll post to our Davis Dollars Facebook page about interns' major accomplishments, and tag them in the post, so it will show up in their news feeds.

Soon I hope to ask interns to prepare a "portfolio" of their concrete accomplishments, which they can list on their resumes, and which I'll talk about when future potential employers contact me about interns' performance.

I'm also making it easier for interns to see how they're doing on old tasks by giving them access to my master list of intern tasks. Up until now, they've been responsible for keeping track of their tasks, and they often let some assignments slip through the cracks. I had to do a lot of reminding to get them to follow up on old tasks. Now the responsibility is in their hands to check up on their old tasks, and they'll be rewarded for doing so!

What are some ways you encourage your peers or subordinates to do well, or discourage them from doing poorly?